【Mmm… don’t kiss me anymore…】
A coquettish woman’s voice came from the video.
Then came a man’s sickeningly coaxing voice: 【Baby, I love you so much. Your cousin Shen Zhihui is so wooden and unromantic. You’re so beautiful and alluring.】
【Hmph, at least you know what to say. Come here and kiss me,】 the woman said. The video then filled with the sickening sounds of the two of them kissing during their affair.
Shen Zhihui stood in the cruise ship corridor, her expression calm as she watched the video her cousin had deliberately sent to gloat about stealing her fiancé.
Was she angry? Not really.
She had no feelings for the fiancé the old man had arranged for her purely for the sake of profit. His cheating had given her the perfect excuse to break things off.
So, after calmly watching the video, Shen Zhihui replied to her cousin: 【Since you like him so much, take him. I don’t want that kind of trash anyway. You can treasure him and put him on a pedestal from now on.】
After sending that message, Shen Zhihui forwarded the video to her future mother-in-law and politely told her she was ending the engagement.
Then she turned off her phone.
She knew that even if her family found out, they would take her cousin’s side, not hers. She didn’t care. All she wanted was to call off the engagement.
Having dealt with that, Shen Zhihui felt sick to her stomach.
She walked down the dim corridor, hoping to get a glass of water.
But just as she passed one of the rooms in the cruise ship’s first-class section, an arm suddenly shot out from inside and grabbed her, dragging her in.
Everything went dark. Shen Zhihui had no chance to resist before she was forced down onto the soft bed in the dim first-class suite.
Sweat, the smell of alcohol, an indescribable fragrance, and a rush of hormones. She wanted to scream for help.
But the man’s lips sealed hers in a fierce kiss.
For a long time, Shen Zhihui was held down against the velvet bedspread. Then, at some point, the man on top of her suddenly bit her ear hard.
It hurt so much she nearly cried out.
But his fingers, faintly scented with tobacco, clamped over her mouth.
The man holding her down was dazed, his mind in a fog, but his voice was harsh and icy, as if coated in frost. “Who are you…? Who told you to climb into my bed? Speak…”
“Or I’ll kill you… Hmm?”
“Let go of me.” He had bitten her so hard that tears welled at the corners of Shen Zhihui’s eyes. She hadn’t climbed into his bed… She was the one being attacked…
Besides, he was the one who had dragged her in!
Was there no justice? He was the one in the wrong, yet he had the nerve to turn around and attack her like a vicious dog!
She opened her mouth, intending to bite his fingers.
But the man might have been drugged with something. After saying those words, he suddenly seemed to lose his strength and released her.
The next second, he rolled onto his side and passed out.
Freed from his weight, Shen Zhihui scrambled upright, her face burning with shame and anger.
She raised her hand, ready to slap him.
Just as she raised her hand, faint moonlight streamed through the ship’s square window and fell across the man lying on his side on the bed.
Her angry hand stopped in midair. She didn’t dare go any further.
The man was none other than Jiang Jingnian, the notorious Living Hades of the imperial capital’s investment world and the scion of the Jiang Conglomerate.
Jiang Jingnian lived up to his name: handsome and distinguished, yet cold-hearted. She had heard that he hated women who approached him for no reason, trying to curry favor.
Once, a socialite had been stupid enough to try to drug him.
By the next day, he had driven her family into bankruptcy.
So the man she had just been entangled with was actually him?
Thinking of what had happened to that socialite, Shen Zhihui immediately swallowed her anger. She gathered the clothes scattered by the bed and hurriedly put them on despite the pain. Holding up her skirt, she opened the suite door and rushed out.
The corridor outside was pitch-black. Even the red indicator lights on the ceiling-mounted security cameras were gone.
It looked as if someone had deliberately damaged the wall lights and surveillance system in this part of the ship.
Clutching her skirt, she didn’t have time to dwell on the humiliation of what had happened that night—or on having lost her virginity. She hurried a few steps, then heard a commotion approaching from farther down the corridor. Amid the many footsteps, someone said, “Search everywhere. Find out who drugged President Jiang.”
“Also, seal off the information. No one is to let this get out.”
Shen Zhihui guessed they were bodyguards. Thinking of herself, she was afraid they might catch her.
She quickly pushed open the door beside her.
And slipped inside.
She closed the door. The bodyguards jogged toward the suites farther ahead. Their voices and footsteps faded as they disappeared into the suite at the far end of the corridor.
Shen Zhihui waited by the door until the corridor outside had gone quiet, then hurried out. She ran through the darkness to the cruise ship’s third deck, where her own room was.
In a panic, she took out her key card, unlocked the door, went inside, and locked it behind her.
A moment later, pain spread through her body, and the bite on her ear began to throb.
Furious, Shen Zhihui pinched her palm. She couldn’t even cry. She hurried to the bathroom to shower.
Under the bathroom’s harsh light, there wasn’t a single unmarked patch of skin on Shen Zhihui’s porcelain-white body. It was covered in bruises and pinched marks.
She was beautiful to begin with, with a palm-sized oval face, alluring almond eyes, delicate pink lips, and a small, pert nose.
But now, from sheer shock, her little face was utterly drained of color.
She didn’t dare look for long at her body, covered in “intimate marks,” or at the terrible state of her right ear. She hurriedly turned on the shower and rinsed herself off, changed clothes, gathered all her things, and disembarked under cover of night.
To be honest, she was furious about what had happened that night. She had lost her precious virginity in a haze, and Jiang Jingnian had turned around and accused her instead. But now that she had calmed down, she didn’t dare call the police or make a scene.
Jiang Jingnian wielded immense power.
She didn’t dare cross him, or her family might be dragged into it.
She’d just have to consider herself bitten by a dog tonight.
*
Meanwhile, in the suite on the cruise ship’s top deck.
The Jiang family’s bodyguards and assistant hurried into the suite and saw the man lying beneath the rumpled sheets.
No one dared disturb him.
They stood outside the suite with their heads bowed, barely daring to breathe. Only Jiang Jingnian’s personal assistant, Lu Congbai, went in, carrying an antidote syringe, a clean shirt, and a pair of trousers.
The suite door closed behind him.
Lu Congbai switched on the wall lights. His handsome boss was already unconscious.
His sculpted, striking features still bore the heaviness of unconsciousness.
Strands of hair lay scattered across his forehead, damp with sweat.
On the bed, which looked like a battlefield, there was also a dark crimson bloodstain.
Lu Congbai couldn’t help drawing in a sharp breath. What kind of woman would dare drug President Jiang like this—and damage the surveillance cameras outside, too?
If President Jiang woke up, he’d tear her to pieces.
Lu Congbai didn’t dare look any longer. He quickly took out the blue antidote syringe and carefully injected it into Jiang Jingnian’s arm.
He pushed the plunger.
Within seconds, all the blue liquid in the syringe had entered Jiang Jingnian’s body.
Lu Congbai pulled out the needle and tossed it into a nearby trash can.
Then he stood quietly by the bed, waiting for Jiang Jingnian to wake.
The antidote worked quickly.
In less than three minutes, the man who had been unconscious finally opened his eyes. His deep, dark eyes were bloodshot and filled with fury. Though he had eventually passed out, he had been conscious during their intimate encounter that night.
He remembered it, too.
He had been under the drug’s influence at the time. Before passing out, he hadn’t had a chance to turn on the light and see who the hateful woman he believed had schemed against him was.
Thinking of the woman he had been entangled with, Jiang Jingnian’s gaze grew even more menacing.
Though…being with her had felt incredibly good, and she smelled sweet and delicate, like a juicy pear. But she had set him up… He wouldn’t let her off so easily.
Jiang Jingnian pressed a hand to his heavy forehead and sat up. Lu Congbai immediately handed him the clean shirt and trousers, lowering his head as he apologized. “President Jiang, I’m sorry. By the time we got word, that woman had already run away…and the surveillance system outside had been sabotaged beforehand.”
“So you’re saying you can’t find her?” Jiang Jingnian quickly put on his shirt, his voice cold and hoarse.
Lu Congbai couldn’t deny it. He could only bow his head even lower. “President Jiang, we’ll find a way to restore the footage and track that woman down.”
Jiang Jingnian narrowed his eyes and gave a cold laugh. He fastened the last button at his collar, then stood and put on his trousers.
Once dressed, he was once again his usual aloof, distinguished self.
He strode toward the suite door.
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of the dark crimson bloodstain, now dried.
That woman had been a virgin?
He had thought that a woman capable of drugging him couldn’t possibly be a virgin.
The man’s gaze darkened unconsciously. After a few seconds, he turned to Lu Congbai, who had followed him, and said, “You must find her. If you can’t, your head will roll.”
Lu Congbai jumped in fright and nodded frantically. “Yes, President Jiang.”